Etymologically
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יד

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Pronunciation

  • Tiberian: yāḏ, construct yaḏ[1][2]
  • Samaritan reading tradition: yad, with suffix yēdu, yēdåk[3]

Forms

יָד (yaḏ) noun, feminine, plural יָדוֹת[1][4] Construct יַד, with suffix יָדוֹ, יֶדְכֶם; dual יָדַיִם, construct יְדֵי; plural יָדוֹת for the senses “parts” and “tenons, axles”; feminine, rarely masculine (Exodus 17:12).[5][6] In the inscriptions yd, ydy, ydyk and byd “by the hand of”.[7][8]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Semitic *yad- (“hand”), one of the basic words of Proto-Semitic.[4][9][10] The word is kept in Ugaritic yd,[11] Phoenician yd,[12] Aramaic יַד (yaḏ), Classical Syriac ܐܝܼܕܵܐ (ʾīḏā),[13] Sabaean yd, Arabic يَد (yad)[14] and Ge'ez እድ (ʾəd).[5][6] Syriac and Mandaic give it a prothetic vowel, and Samaritan Aramaic writes it ⟨ʾd⟩.[13][5] Kogan notes that Akkadian alone replaced it, by Akkadian qātu, keeping the old idu (“arm, side, strength”) in idioms.[10][9] Militarev and Kogan add that the Akkadian word may continue a variant *ʔid- instead.[9] BDB records the older view that the noun comes from a root with final ⟨y⟩, on the evidence of the plural, and leaves it open.[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is one of the commonest nouns of the Bible, 1,618 times, 22 of them in the archaic poems.[1][15] In the Blessing of Jacob, Judah's “hand shall be on the neck of your enemies”, yāḏəḵā bəʿōrep̄ ʾōyəḇeḵā (Genesis 49:8), and in the Song of the Sea the enemy boasts tôrîšēmô yāḏî, “my hand shall destroy them” (Exodus 15:9).[1] The oldest dated records are the Ḥorvat ʿUza jar inscription, which Davies dates to the late 7th or early 6th century BC, and the Lachish and Arad ostraca of the 6th century BC.[16][17][18]

Semantic evolution

Beside the forearm and the hand itself, HALOT lists the paw of an animal, the hand of God, and many phrases built on the hand: to give the hand in a pledge, to put the hand on the mouth in silence, bəyaḏ “by the hand of”, that is through or by means of, and ʿal-yaḏ “beside”.[5] From the hand as strength came “power”, the hand of an enemy or of God.[5][6] Metaphorically yāḏ is a side or bank (raḥăḇaṯ yāḏayim “wide on both hands”, spacious, Genesis 34:21), and a monument: Saul's yāḏ at Carmel (1 Samuel 15:12), the yaḏ ʾaḇšālôm (2 Samuel 18:18) and the yāḏ wāšēm, “a memorial and a name”, of Isaiah 56:5.[5] The plural yāḏôṯ is used for the tenons of the tabernacle frames, the axles of the temple stands and the arms of Solomon's throne, and also for parts or shares, “five times as much” (Genesis 43:34).[5][6]

The Septuagint renders it by Ancient Greek χείρ (kheír).[1] The Dead Sea Scrolls use it 1,411 times.[19] Today Modern Hebrew יד (yad) keeps it; the phrase yāḏ wāšēm of Isaiah 56:5 named the Israeli Holocaust memorial.[4]

Timeline

  • Late 7th – early 6th century BC – yd on the Ḥorvat ʿUza jar inscription.[16]
  • 6th century BC – yd and byd in the Lachish and Arad ostraca.[17][18][20]
  • Archaic Hebrew poetry – Genesis 49:8, 49:24 and Exodus 15:9.[15][1]
  • Classical Biblical Hebrew – 706 of the verses with the word are in Genesis to Kings.[1]
  • 3rd–2nd century BC – the Septuagint renders it Ancient Greek χείρ (kheír).[21][1]
  • 2nd century BC – 2nd century AD – 1,411 occurrences in the Dead Sea Scrolls.[22][19]

Meanings

Noun

  1. the hand; the forearm;[4] (dual) both hands.[5][6]
  2. the forefoot or paw of an animal.[5]
  3. power, strength, control; the hand of God.[5][6]
  4. (with prepositions) bəyaḏ by means of, through;[4] ʿal-yaḏ beside, next to.[5]
  5. a side; a bank or shore.[5][6]
  6. a monument or memorial; a signpost (Ezekiel 21:24).[5]
  7. (plural yāḏôṯ) tenons, axles, armrests; parts, shares, times.[5][6]

Descendants

  • Modern Hebrew יד (yad)[4]
  • English yad[23]
  • Dutch jat[4]
  • אצבע (ʾeṣbaʿ)
  • רגל (reḡel)

Usage notes

HALOT records a conjectural second noun yaḏ “love”, from the root of יָדִיד (yāḏîḏ, “beloved”), proposed for Psalm 16:4, like Ugaritic yd “love”.[24][25] Biblical Aramaic has the same noun, yaḏ, 17 times.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Clear Bible (2023–), MACULA Hebrew Linguistic Datasets (Westminster Leningrad Codex, with Greek alignment), github.com/Clear-Bible/macula-hebrew, CC BY 4.0
  2. ^ Brown, Francis; Driver, S. R.; Briggs, Charles A. (1906), A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, with an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  3. ^ Højgaard, Christian Canu; Naaijer, Martijn; Schorch, Stefan (2023), Text-Fabric Dataset of the Samaritan Pentateuch, Zenodo, doi:10.5281/zenodo.7734632
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Koehler, Ludwig; Baumgartner, Walter; Stamm, Johann Jakob (1994–2000), The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, transl. and ed. M. E. J. Richardson, 5 vols, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. יָד I
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Brown, Francis; Driver, S. R.; Briggs, Charles A. (1906), A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, with an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. יָד
  7. ^ Davies, Graham I. (1991), Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions: Corpus and Concordance, vol. 1, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  8. ^ Davies, Graham I. (2004), Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions: Corpus and Concordance, vol. 2, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  9. ^ a b c Militarev, Alexander; Kogan, Leonid (2000), Semitic Etymological Dictionary, vol. 1: Anatomy of Man and Animals, Münster: Ugarit-Verlag (AOAT 278/1), p. 291
  10. ^ a b Kogan, Leonid (2015), Genealogical Classification of Semitic: The Lexical Isoglosses, Berlin: De Gruyter, p. 31
  11. ^ del Olmo Lete, Gregorio; Sanmartín, Joaquín (2015), A Dictionary of the Ugaritic Language in the Alphabetic Tradition, 3rd ed., transl. W. G. E. Watson, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. yd I
  12. ^ Krahmalkov, Charles R. (2000), Phoenician-Punic Dictionary, Leuven: Peeters (OLA 90), p. s.v. yd
  13. ^ a b Kaufman, Stephen A., ed., Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon, Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College, cal.huc.edu, p. s.v. yd
  14. ^ Lane, Edward William (1863–1893), An Arabic-English Lexicon, 8 parts, London: Williams and Norgate, p. 3063
  15. ^ a b Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 69
  16. ^ a b Davies, Graham I. (2004), Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions: Corpus and Concordance, vol. 2, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 37.004.2
  17. ^ a b Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 76–77
  18. ^ a b Davies, Graham I. (1991), Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions: Corpus and Concordance, vol. 1, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 1.006.6
  19. ^ a b Abegg, Martin G.; Jacobs, Jarod; Roorda, Dirk (2022), The Dead Sea Scrolls, Text-Fabric dataset, version 2.0.2, github.com/ETCBC/dss
  20. ^ Davies, Graham I. (1991), Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions: Corpus and Concordance, vol. 1, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 2.016.5
  21. ^ Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 93
  22. ^ Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 143
  23. ^ Huehnergard, John (2011), "Proto-Semitic Language and Culture" and "Semitic Roots", in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  24. ^ Koehler, Ludwig; Baumgartner, Walter; Stamm, Johann Jakob (1994–2000), The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, transl. and ed. M. E. J. Richardson, 5 vols, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. יָד II
  25. ^ del Olmo Lete, Gregorio; Sanmartín, Joaquín (2015), A Dictionary of the Ugaritic Language in the Alphabetic Tradition, 3rd ed., transl. W. G. E. Watson, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. yd II